Violins of Hope (16 page)

It was this same movement to blacklist Jews that blocked Ernst Glaser from performing in Bergen.

Ernst Glaser was born in Germany, but had identified himself as a Norwegian ever since he moved to Norway on August 28, 1928. In return, he became one of the country's most beloved cultural figures. Known for his virtuosic performances as much as for his devilish sense of humor and good looks, he was a national celebrity.

Ernst was born in Hamburg on February 24, 1904, to Jewish umbrella manufacturer Felix Glaser and his wife, Jenny Rosenbaum. It was Jenny, a pianist herself, who decided that Ernst would play the violin, while his older sister Lizzie would play the piano. From 1921 to 1925 Ernst was a student of the legendary violin pedagogue Carl Flesch in Berlin. Ernst subsequently earned a position as the associate concertmaster of the Bremen State Orchestra, a position he held from 1926 to 1928.

In 1928, Ernst became the concertmaster of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra at the recommendation of Max Rostal, a fellow student of Flesch's. Rostal had been the concertmaster in Oslo, but was leaving to move back to Berlin, where he had been offered a teaching position at the prestigious music conservatory. Issay Dobrowen, the conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic who would later serve as one of the principal conductors of the Palestine Orchestra during its first three seasons, selected Ernst from seven finalists. Ernst immigrated to Norway and was immediately smitten with both the country and the Norwegian pianist Kari Marie Aarvold, whom he married in 1929.

Shortly after arriving in Norway, Ernst dedicated himself to raising the level of music in his newly adopted homeland. One way he accomplished this was by teaching two generations of Norwegian violinists. Indeed, most of the important Norwegian violinists of the latter twentieth century—including Ernst's successor as the concertmaster of the Oslo Philharmonic and a number of other members of the orchestra—were his students.

Ernst made his most significant contributions as a performer, serving both as the concertmaster of the Oslo Philharmonic and as the leader of the orchestra's string quartet. A devoted advocate for contemporary music—especially new music from Norway—he initiated a tradition of performing a violin concerto with the orchestra every year. These were often the world premieres of concertos by contemporary Norwegian composers who otherwise would have been relegated to obscurity. He also performed abroad, in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany, bringing distinction back to the country he now called his home.

Ernst applied for citizenship in 1933, the same year that his daughter Berit was born. He sensed the mounting anti-Semitism in Germany, and was eager to become naturalized in Norway. He became a Norwegian citizen in 1934. He welcomed his second daughter Liv into the world one year later. Ernst begged his parents to join his new family in Norway, but his father was among the many German Jews who did not foresee the danger and insisted on staying. He maintained that he had no reason to live in fear in the country that had always been his home.

Ernst's sister Lizzie also remained in Germany. She was more concerned about the future of German Jews than her father was, but she still refused to leave. Lizzie changed her mind after her husband was arrested on Kristallnacht. Having served Germany honorably in World War I, Ernst's brother-in-law was fortunate enough to be released within three weeks. After being warned that he would be arrested for a second time, he and Lizzie drove straight across the border to Holland.

The Kristallnacht riots also convinced Ernst's father to finally emigrate. With the help of the board of directors of the Oslo Philharmonic and members of the Norwegian government who had grown fond of his playing, Ernst was able to overcome discriminatory immigration policies and secure entry visas for his Jewish parents. They moved in with Ernst and his family with just their suitcases, their umbrellas, and two German reichsmarks in their pockets.

Ernst's favorite aunt did not make it out of Germany. She perished in a concentration camp.

For his January 16, 1941, appearance with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Ernst was going to play a violin concerto by Christian Sinding to commemorate the venerable Norwegian composer's eighty-fifth birthday. As a special treat for the Bergen audience, Ernst planned to perform the concerto on a violin that had been recently donated to the Oslo Philharmonic by the descendants of Ole Bull.

In addition to being hailed as one of the greatest violinists of all time, Ole Bornemann Bull (1810–80) was—and still is—a source of immense national pride in Norway. While teaching himself to play the violin, he developed new techniques for replicating sounds from Norwegian nature and for performing folksongs and country dances. When the king of Denmark asked Bull who had taught him to play, he replied, “The Mountains of Norway, your majesty.”
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The result was a ruggedly individualistic style of playing. Bull preferred long, heavy bows that are more appropriate to the traditional Norwegian Hardanger fiddle than to the classical violin. His own experience playing the Hardanger fiddle also convinced him to flatten the bridges and fingerboards of his violins to allow him to draw the bow across several strings at the same time. Even his repertoire was unique. He had a penchant for performing his own flamboyant compositions—often based on Norwegian melodies—instead of the established warhorses.

Bull did much more than bring prestige to his homeland. He seemed to personify it. Born and raised in Bergen, he grew up mingling with Norwegian peasants at the local market and in the country. From them he developed a deep respect for the Norwegian folk character that had been subjugated during the country's four-hundred-year union with Denmark. Bull became a patriotic leader in the Norwegian National Revival, spearheading the establishment of the Norwegian National Theatre in Bergen and later attempting to found a National Academy of Music in Christiana (now Oslo) with Grieg. Bull felt that his countrymen held “a wonderfully deep and characteristic sound-board” vibrating in their breasts,
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and his mission was to endow them with the strings that would resonate the unique Norwegian sound throughout the world. He spent most of his life touring the world's greatest capitals, but never grew tired of returning to his homeland to share his talent with his compatriots. Charismatic and patriotic, he was Norway's most famous and most loyal son.

In May 1940, Bull's granddaughter presented the Oslo Philharmonic with a violin that was made in 1742. The instrument was already valuable because it was a Guarneri del Gesù, and such instruments are generally considered to be equal to—if not better than—the finest Stradivariuses. But this instrument was also a historic treasure because it was once owned and played by Ole Bull himself.

Ernst was the first person to play the violin after several decades of neglect. Taking the valuable instrument out of the elongated case that was custom-built to carry Ole Bull's extralong bows, Ernst played Ole Bull's song “The Herd Girl's Sunday.” “I have never heard such applause,” Ernst later recalled, adding with his typical lighthearted humor, “although
that
had nothing to do with me.”
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The instrument was not in great shape and required some restoration. Despite a slight defect in the construction of the scroll—a common problem among late Guarneris—the experts in Oslo nevertheless claimed that the violin was among the best instruments that Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri ever made. Ernst found the violin to have a relatively small sound, but he did note that it had a lovely, shining tone. He played the violin in Oslo in the fall of 1940, and spent the next several months continuing to acclimate the instrument back into playing condition. Now he was bringing the instrument to Ole Bull's hometown for one of its first appearances in the twentieth century.

The citizens of Bergen were quite eager to hear Ole Bull's Violin. None of them had even dreamed that they would ever get to witness the magical sound with which the revered Norwegian virtuoso had enchanted audiences all over the world a century earlier. To reinforce the connection to Ole Bull, Harald Heide—who had been the philharmonic's artistic director since 1908—had prepared something special. The grand finale would be Heide's arrangement of Ole Bull's
Polacca Guerriera
for violin and orchestra, with Ernst once again playing the solo part on Ole Bull's Violin.

The philharmonic concert began innocently enough, with a performance of Haydn's
Military
Symphony. About fifteen minutes into the Haydn, a large group of teenage boys entered the concert hall and occupied the empty seats. Some audience members found it nice that the young people were taking an interest in classical music, even if they did arrive late. Others immediately suspected that the teenagers' motives were much more sinister: the boys were members of the National Youth—Norway's version of the Hitler Youth—who were planning a demonstration if the Jewish concertmaster from Oslo set foot on the stage.

The Nazis had already called for a partial boycott of the performance. Although Quisling's National Union Party had allowed the philharmonic to hold the concert, it had forbidden the newspapers from reviewing it. The German authorities had approved the program, but had prohibited their people from attending the concert. They saw the appearance of a Jewish soloist as a slap in the face of the occupying forces.

Up to that point, the Nazi censorship of the Bergen Philharmonic had been limited to their repertoire, much like Germany's suppression of compositions by Jews. Music by composers who were obviously Jewish had been banned, but the censors had been oblivious to the Jewish heritages of figures like the Czech composer Jaromír Weinberger. Later that year, after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the works of Russians were also prohibited, robbing the audience of their favorite composer, Tchaikovsky. But a Nazi demonstration in the middle of a concert was unthinkable, especially since Ernst had played the same concerto on the same violin three days earlier in Oslo.

The violin concerto was supposed to follow the Haydn symphony, but Ernst did not appear. The lengthy gap between pieces and the presence of the National Youth created a foreboding silence throughout the audience. Backstage, Nazi officials were telling maestro Heide that Ernst must not be allowed to perform. Heide was instructed to stop the concert. He refused. He did, however, buy himself some time by postponing Ernst's appearance to later in the concert.

Heide returned to the stage and announced a change: the orchestra would now play
The Flute of Sanssouci
, an orchestral suite by German composer Paul Graener that came after the concerto on the printed program. The appearance of
The Flute of Sanssouci
on the program must have placated the German censors who had originally signed off on Ernst's performance. The work, which pays homage to the flute-playing eighteenth-century Prussian king Frederick the Great, was composed by an ardent Nazi who was also the vice president of the Reich Chamber of Music.

The orchestra played all four movements of Graener's suite. Then there was another long pause. Instead of returning to the podium, Heide could be seen pacing back and forth behind the orchestra, looking distraught. The members of the orchestra looked at him and at each other in confusion. Finally, Heide resigned himself to the fact that he would be putting Ernst at too much of a risk if he allowed him to perform. Heide stepped to the front of the stage and announced that he was very sorry, but that due to unforeseen circumstances the remainder of the concert would have to be canceled.

“What the hell!” yelled one of the National Youth from the balcony. “Why doesn't he come?” They had been waiting to protest Ernst through half of the Haydn and all of the Graener. They had grown impatient for the protest to begin.

“Is it because Glaser is a Jew?” someone else shouted.
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Then all hell broke loose.

The demonstrators started booing and chanting “Down with the Jews! Down with the Jews! Away with the Jew Moses Salomon,”
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referring to the object of their scorn not by his true German name “Ernst Glaser” but by “Moses Salomon,” a very Jewish-sounding name that they invented for him. The National Youth dropped flyers from the balcony that read, in poorly spelled Norwegian:

The lights in the concert hall came on, allowing the audience to finally see the uniforms of the National Youth. In what is surely one of the most heroic moments in the history of music, the music lovers in attendance became enraged and attacked the demonstrators.

After Germany had occupied Bergen, the audience had resolved to keep the philharmonic concerts as free from Nazi politics as possible. They had accepted the presence of German soldiers and civilians in the concert hall, but these new audience members had not interfered with the performances. This protest was something completely different. It was an unwelcome intrusion into their artistic sanctuary. They decided to fight back.

In response to the chants of “Down with the Jews,” the Norwegian actor Hans Stormoen called out, “Down with the rioters.”
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Fights broke out throughout the concert hall. One member of the audience struck a Nazi hooligan with the handle of her umbrella. A violinist from the orchestra tore off his tuxedo jacket and jumped from the stage to join the bloody fistfight against the National Youth.